Alright, finally feeling less tired. Got enough energy to start posting about the World Congress for Hair Research.

Here we go!

As you can see from the photo above, the next WCHR will be in about 1 and a half years in Barcelona, Spain.

First things first, the venue is amazing. It’s located at the north end of Kyoto and surrounded by hills. Getting there was real easy; just take the subway (Karasuma-Oike Line) all the way to the last station. There’s a tunnel pathway that leads basically straight to the conference centre with directional signage in both Japanese and English. Honestly, I was really surprised how easy transportation is in Japan. Some photos below.

Next, the congress itself.

As you can see from the pics below, NO photos or videos allowed!

As you can see from the photo below, Dr. Cotsarelis looks either bored or tired, lol. However, like many of us, he too is suffering from baldness. He’s freakishly tall though, so it’s hard to notice it. However, it’s clear he hasn’t really taken advantage of his own discoveries…

Thank god for food this time DURING presentations, the whole schedule was rammed with almost NO breaks or time for anything during the day. Once I post some of presentations you’ll be able to hear a lot of noise from everyone eating from their ekibens.

This schedule actually caused some problems for me;

1) I was late for some of the presentations that followed the ones I was already in.
2) I had no time to meet / greet the researchers.
3) Even when I did meet the researchers, they had no time afterwards as they themselves were busy, but even if they DID have time, I had to be in the presentations!!
4) Even when I was done with presentations afterwards, I had a hard time finding the researchers. They were gone.
5) I also never heard from back from many of them via email
6) A lot of them didn’t show up to the conference; Histogen, Replicel, Samumed were all absent.
7) Some that WERE supposed to be there, couldn’t make it; Dr. Gerd Lindner from Dr. Lauster’s team.

Furthermore, I never spoke with Dr. Cotsarelis. I did speak with Dr. Washenik (very briefly) and he gave me answers on some stuff; Follica is still doing trials (but couldn’t comment on details) and Kerastem should be releasing results shortly from further trials.

I also DID manage get a hold of Dr. Koh-ei Toyoshima from Tsuji labs, and said he’d have time in between presentations, but as I said, I’d have to sacrifice being at presentations. So I had to make a choice; I either miss out on what I could ONLY hear at the conference from the presentations (not good) and postpone interviews to a later date (these CAN be done at a later time) or attempt the interview NOW… BUT, that was another problem; Dr. Toyoshima’s english isn’t very good. So even if I did attempt to conduct an interview, it probably wouldn’t be the best one. However, postponing may actually be a good thing considering I’ve got his entire presentation which will more than likely raise even MORE questions. So, I suppose it could be best to just save all the questions for later and fire them off for another round of questions like HairLossTalk.com did before with a translator. Might take a while, but hey, won’t matter as it won’t speed things up anyway.

Finally, the whole congress seemed to be a much more quaint. As nice as it was, there just didn’t seem to be a whole lot of traction, crowds, vendors, etc.

And finally, Shiseido’s poster:

I actually inquired about the work with Replicel and they wouldn’t comment on it and told me I had to get in touch with Replicel’s team as the project had been transferred to them. Not sure what this means but… ???

Anyway, I’ve got ALL of the posters on hand I’ll be sharing those first as it was the easiest thing to get put online. I also have photographs of the actual slides from essentially ALL of the presentations this time! However, there’s about 800+ images of them so this is going to be a massive project for me to handle. Fortunately, I took pics with my phone and had folders setup to move them accordingly to their respectively labeled folder. Otherwise, I’d probably VERY lost with a straight camera. Thank god for Android since I know iPhones are absolute garbage for file management.

How'd you manage to get photos/videos when there was no cameras allowed? ..secret agent mode.

Too bad about the lack of opportunity for dialogue. You could not have predicted that.

If it had of turned out to be this dream scenario where you have long breaks between seminars and really enthusiastic researchers sharing insider updates, we would be hailing you as a hero. but you did your best man, going to japan to get an early heads up, thats dedication!

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Yeah, I'm really sorry about it guys. Not much I could do. Only people that showed up that were of interest to us were Dr. Cotsarelis, Dr. Washenik, Dr. Toyoshima and Dr. Higgins. I had to make a choice, either skip the presentations (which they were in as well anyway) to try and get interviews or get the presentations which I couldn't get later and postpone interviews. I think I made the right call since the presentations are what matter as those we'll never hear about later on.

Please Hellouser,
We've been waiting for a week
Publish a post with the key facts of the most known and hoped companies.
You're extending this thing so much and been a little bit misrespectful to us...
Talk at least about Sisheido and the conference by Kishimoto.
Why didn't you ask further about this "project trsnsferred, talk to Replicel"?

In regards to Shiseido, you can see that the entire right side of the poster board is about the trial using DSCC, the same trial that they partnered with Replicel to use rch-01. The trial is still on going so it would make sense they wouldn't post anything definite about it since final results haven't been recorded. Also Shiseido has accused Replicel of breaching its contract obligations so both are in a bit of hot water with each other at the moment.

Talk at least about Sisheido and the conference by Kishimoto.
Why didn't you ask further about this "project trsnsferred, talk to Replicel"?

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Because that's all they would say. They said the trials or project (don't remember what word they used) was transferred over to Replicel and said I'd have to talk to them.. and Replicel's team wasn't there. I emailed Replicel (Lee Buckler, to be exact) to see if they'd be attending but I never heard back from him. I never saw any of them at the congress either and I was there every day ALL day.

Which is what I couldn't really wrap my head around. Dr. Tsuboi presenting their work, but it's Replicel's work, right? At least that's what I thought. When I tried to talk to them about the Replicel trials (which, as far as we all know, is a joint venture) they said I'd have to talk to Replicel... but they're doing the same work? I might email them.

Only thing that really is unfortunate is the language barrier, a lot of the people had limited english (there was a group of about 4 or so from Shiseido). I do have Dr. Tsuboi's presentation though, I'll share it as soon as I can.

In regards to Shiseido, you can see that the entire right side of the poster board is about the trial using DSCC, the same trial that they partnered with Replicel to use rch-01. The trial is still on going so it would make sense they wouldn't post anything definite about it since final results haven't been recorded. Also Shiseido has accused Replicel of breaching its contract obligations so both are in a bit of hot water with each other at the moment.

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This. Shiseido is clearly still doing the phase II trial. I think the reason Hellouser got the response he did is because he mentioned Replicel, the company. Shiseido considers the contract breached and they will probably not pay royalties to Replicel. Doesn't affect us as long as Shiseido still brings it to market.

Which is what I couldn't really wrap my head around. Dr. Tsuboi presenting their work, but it's Replicel's work, right? At least that's what I thought. When I tried to talk to them about the Replicel trials (which, as far as we all know, is a joint venture) they said I'd have to talk to Replicel... but they're doing the same work? I might email them.

Only thing that really is unfortunate is the language barrier, a lot of the people had limited english (there was a group of about 4 or so from Shiseido). I do have Dr. Tsuboi's presentation though, I'll share it as soon as I can.

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No don't mention Replicel at all. It may very well not be a joint venture anymore since Shiseido considers the contract breached. Shiseido is performing the phase II completely on their own. They paid like 4 million to have sole proprietary of the tech in Asia. If you email, just ask them about the progress with RCH-01 and potential release to market date, don't bring up Replicel at all as it is not really necessary.